(In)effective communication of (non)science to the public (part 1)

       I recently traveled to a magical land, forgotten by time and reason. Dinosaurs roamed about and nothing ever died. Sound familiar? Well, if you've ever read the bible and taken it literally, this is how the world used to be. This view of reality is preserved at the CreationMuseum, located in Kentucky just a short drive south of Cincinnati. Their slogan: Prepare to believe. I really wasn't sure how to go about preparing, but I did bring my camera.

       The museum is run by a group called Answers in Genesis, a fairly extreme Christian group of young-Earth creationists. They are pretty nutty. Being a zoology graduate student with a fairly strong grasp on evolutionary principles, I made this trip largely for laughs and to see how the other side lives. It was also of interest considering the seminar I'm taking (Effective communication of science to the public) is the reason for this blog began.

       The Creation Museum (though arguably not really a museum) is big on dinosaurs. Really big. Every advertisement I've ever seen for the place features dinosaurs, and dinosaurs are the first thing we encounter upon entering. After the dinosaurs comes the ticket booth (an outrageous $25!), but then we're back to more dinosaurs. They then take your picture with dinosaurs ($20 if you want a copy!), and then you move along to see more dinosaurs.

 Dinosaurs and people together, wow!

       We're taken to a scene of a paleontological dig site, where two researchers work side by side on the same fossil. One is a creationist, the other is an actual scientist. This is some text that appeared near the exhibit:

       The first part is fine, and certainly true. The second part is also true, as scientists can look at the same set of data and come to different conclusions. The problem arises when one “scientist” interprets facts according to a book written a few thousand years ago and the other scientist interprets facts according to the current understanding of professionals in the field, which relies on peer-reviewed published records documenting empirical findings. The conclusions reached by these two researchers couldn't be more different. The creationist claims (from the authority of a book) that the world was created a few thousand years ago and all the fossils are a result of a global flood. The real scientist claims (from the authority of countless lines of empirical evidence that has been repeatedly tested and confirmed by other independent scientists) that the world was created billions of years ago and that fossils are a product of slow processes that continue to act today. Which of these claims makes more sense: believing you are right because a book says so, or believing you are right because your assumptions have been verified repeatedly for decades? I just don't get it.

     But who cares? Everything was just perfect in the world of the bible.

Look, a forest penguin!

     A literal interpretation of the bible creates some problems:

       Dinosaurs, cats, snakes, and hawks were all vegetarians. Neat! One must wonder why their teeth and digestive systems are so capable of seizing, ripping, and disintegrating protein from other animals. Or maybe one must not wonder about that. Don't wonder about that. Just accept the fact that despite the incredibly sharp and serrated teeth present in the jaw of the T-rex, it was content to eat peaches and dandelions. At least, that's what the bible says.

Delicious foliage!

       Wait a second! They were all eating plants, so why do the plants have to die but not the animals? The answer is simple: plants aren't alive!

Whew! That's good to know. I'll be sure to tell some botanists about this.

       But, you might protest, why do these organisms eat meat now? The answer, according to the book, is that after the fall of man everything changed:

Put those teeth to use!

       Some other things that could be hard to explain are easily handled when repetition from a book takes the place of critical thinking:

Revealed information? Sounds exciting!

Don't weed your garden, they're there to keep things in balance!

       Another big problem the bible has to deal with is why dinosaurs and other creatures no longer roam the Earth. The ark (a big boat) features prominently in the Creation Museum, and supposedly held two of each kind of animal.

Dinosaurs were on the ark, but I guess they all fell off to become fossils...

Assuming this model is correct, there may have actually been only one zebra on the ark!

     People who didn't get their tickets for the ark were left behind to work things out for themselves:

I don't see how choking someone will improve the situation.

     This is all pretty absurd, and I could go on and on about the ridiculous things I saw at the Creation Museum, but I'll stop here.

     Stay tuned for part 2, where I discuss what really bothers me about the Creation Museum and incorporate ideas about communication and the position of science in society.

P.S. To help myself sleep at night, I donated $50 to the National Center for ScienceEducation. This organization has played an integral part in defending science and reason from unsubstantiated pseudo-science masquerading as something that deserves attention in our classrooms. If you care about the quality of science education in this country, please give what you can to this group. They were largely responsible for the legal defeat of intelligent design in  Kitzmiller vs.Dover.